I don't recommend using two Soundblasters on a PC.  In theory, a modern PC with Win95 can handle this, but there still tends to be hardware conflicts.  In addition the scheme programs use to decide which card to use doesn't always produce predictable results.  Often a program will use one SB for digital audio, and another for MIDI for instance.  Then there are DirectX problems...

As you said, another problem is finding software that uses two cards in parallel;  I haven't seen any.  

In theory, WAV and AIFF are both unofficially capable of supporting audio with any number of channels.  The problem is that there don't exist any player applications for quad.

I do use Csound on the PC to do quadraphonic audio, but not real-time.  I use an Emagic AudioWerk 8 card, which is an excellent audio card at about $800.  It has digital in/out, analog stereo in and 8 channels analog out, all of which operate in parallel.  In addition, it has support for an ADAT daughter-board (8 digital in/ 8 digital out) that supposedly also operates in parallel.   What I do is split my quadraphonic output file into four mono files, then load these files into the 8-track recorder program that comes with the card.  The method is a bit kludged, but it works without using an external multitrack recorder.  It takes one to five minutes to go from a compiled quadraphonic sound file to playback on the 8-track recorder program.

If anyone has better methods of doing quad on a PC, in real-time or not, I would love to hear how you are doing it.

Christopher Neese

-----Original Message-----
From:	Gabriel Maldonado [SMTP:g.maldonado@agora.stm.it]
Sent:	Saturday, November 01, 1997 4:22 AM
To:	Hans Mikelson; Csound Mailing List
Subject:	Re: More than two channels

I think the cheapest way is to buy two Soundblasters or compatibles (at
least with PC hardware, each one of these card costs about 50 US dollars
or less). The problem is the software which allow using a pair of stereo
cards in parallel.
Does anyone know what are audio file formats supporting quadraphony
(perhaps aiff)?

Does anyone know what are the platforms in which realtime Csound quad
in-out is implemented at present time ?

--
Gabriel Maldonado

mailto:g.maldonado@agora.stm.it
http://www.agora.stm.it/G.Maldonado/home2.htm
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Way/7041/home2.htm


Hans Mikelson wrote:

> Hello,
>
> What is the cheapest way to get quad audio?  I've seen some Technics
> recievers which are rated as "Dolby Digital Ready" which seems to mean
> they
> take 6 channels in and put out 6 channels.  They actually require a
> separate decoder to decode Dolby Digital but I think they would be
> able to
> take any other multi-channel source like from a computer board capable
> of
> putting out 4 or more channels.  Also if you buy one with a built in
> decoder (ie. Pioneer) I suspect it can't handle multichannel input
> from a
> standard source and it's more expensive too.
>
> The other alternative I would have is to use my 4-track recorder but
> it
> only records 2 tracks at one time although it can play out 4 tracks at
>
> once.  I could record the first two tracks, then rewind and record the
> next
> two tracks and then play them all back at once.  Which wouldn't be
> good
> enough to catch phase relationships but might be ok for some panning
> stuff.
>
> Bye,
> Hans Mikelson

I have seen cool edit pro run on multiple cards as well as cakewalk pro
6. (is that the latest?) all under winslug 95. Its impressive but a pain 
if something isnt working. I think SoundForge can do this too. dont use
a PC personally but I did see it running.

Michael

On Sun, 2 Nov 1997, Christopher
Neese wrote:

> I don't recommend using two Soundblasters on a PC.  In theory, a modern PC with Win95 can handle this, but there still tends to be hardware conflicts.  In addition the scheme programs use to decide which card to use doesn't always produce predictable results.  Often a program will use one SB for digital audio, and another for MIDI for instance.  Then there are DirectX problems...
> 
> As you said, another problem is finding software that uses two cards in parallel;  I haven't seen any.  
> 
> In theory, WAV and AIFF are both unofficially capable of supporting audio with any number of channels.  The problem is that there don't exist any player applications for quad.
> 
> I do use Csound on the PC to do quadraphonic audio, but not real-time.  I use an Emagic AudioWerk 8 card, which is an excellent audio card at about $800.  It has digital in/out, analog stereo in and 8 channels analog out, all of which operate in parallel.  In addition, it has support for an ADAT daughter-board (8 digital in/ 8 digital out) that supposedly also operates in parallel.   What I do is split my quadraphonic output file into four mono files, then load these files into the 8-track recorder program that comes with the card.  The method is a bit kludged, but it works without using an external multitrack recorder.  It takes one to five minutes to go from a compiled quadraphonic sound file to playback on the 8-track recorder program.
> 
> If anyone has better methods of doing quad on a PC, in real-time or not, I would love to hear how you are doing it.
> 
> Christopher Neese
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Gabriel Maldonado [SMTP:g.maldonado@agora.stm.it]
> Sent:	Saturday, November 01, 1997 4:22 AM
> To:	Hans Mikelson; Csound Mailing List
> Subject:	Re: More than two channels
> 
> I think the cheapest way is to buy two Soundblasters or compatibles (at
> least with PC hardware, each one of these card costs about 50 US dollars
> or less). The problem is the software which allow using a pair of stereo
> cards in parallel.
> Does anyone know what are audio file formats supporting quadraphony
> (perhaps aiff)?
> 
> Does anyone know what are the platforms in which realtime Csound quad
> in-out is implemented at present time ?
> 
> --
> Gabriel Maldonado
> 
> mailto:g.maldonado@agora.stm.it
> http://www.agora.stm.it/G.Maldonado/home2.htm
> http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Way/7041/home2.htm
> 
> 
> Hans Mikelson wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> >
> > What is the cheapest way to get quad audio?  I've seen some Technics
> > recievers which are rated as "Dolby Digital Ready" which seems to mean
> > they
> > take 6 channels in and put out 6 channels.  They actually require a
> > separate decoder to decode Dolby Digital but I think they would be
> > able to
> > take any other multi-channel source like from a computer board capable
> > of
> > putting out 4 or more channels.  Also if you buy one with a built in
> > decoder (ie. Pioneer) I suspect it can't handle multichannel input
> > from a
> > standard source and it's more expensive too.
> >
> > The other alternative I would have is to use my 4-track recorder but
> > it
> > only records 2 tracks at one time although it can play out 4 tracks at
> >
> > once.  I could record the first two tracks, then rewind and record the
> > next
> > two tracks and then play them all back at once.  Which wouldn't be
> > good
> > enough to catch phase relationships but might be ok for some panning
> > stuff.
> >
> > Bye,
> > Hans Mikelson
> 
> 
> 
> 

We have recently acquired a Terratec EWS64 XL card for our
multimedia course here at Bath Spa University College; this supports twin
stereo outputs. I am planning semi-unofficially to 'explore the
possibilities' of writing a 4-channel playback program which would read
4-channel WAV files.
If I succeed (or someone else does), this might be a useful system for
4-ch Csound output.

In theory, multiple EWS cards can be used, but they are VERY resource
greedy, and I have yet to get all the MIDI synthesis stuff to install
properly - we may have to wait for WIndows98 (99,,00,...).

Richard Dobson

And what I've been reading a long wait.

Michael

On Wed, 12 Nov 1997, Richard Dobson
wrote:

> We have recently acquired a Terratec EWS64 XL card for our
> multimedia course here at Bath Spa University College; this supports twin
> stereo outputs. I am planning semi-unofficially to 'explore the
> possibilities' of writing a 4-channel playback program which would read
> 4-channel WAV files.
> If I succeed (or someone else does), this might be a useful system for
> 4-ch Csound output.
> 
> In theory, multiple EWS cards can be used, but they are VERY resource
> greedy, and I have yet to get all the MIDI synthesis stuff to install
> properly - we may have to wait for WIndows98 (99,,00,...).
> 
> Richard Dobson
>